LEAVE ME ALONE (2004-HK)
review by Neo


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Oh no, one is bad enough - not two???
A seemingly good movie becomes a pretty average and nonsense movie. I just really hate movies that gives out a false impression of it being a good movie and suddenly going straight downhill and almost all the way to HELL. Sure the 3/4 or even 2/3 of the movie is good and premises looks original, then comes cliques, endings to please rather than to touch. So what can I say? It is basically a movie that lifts you up to a high building, then falling down like an elephant. Yeah, the ending part is that crap. So what's the point of watching this movie, well I must say, Charlene Choi performance is worthy of my thumbs up, while not award winning, it is the Charlene that I expected after watching her promising performance in Funeral March, not the happy go lucky and cute face - My Wife is 18.

The story goes like this: Man (Ekin Cheng) and Kit (Ekin Cheng) are identical twins. They always exchanged their identities for fun when they were young. Since their parents got divorced, Man (the younger brother) stays in Hong Kong with mother, while Kit (the elder brother) moves to Thailand with father. One day during their twenties, Kit comes to Hong Kong to visit Man and lends his driving license to drive. Unfortunately, he has a car accident and has to stay at hospital. Kit asks Man to go to Thailand. When Man arrives, he finds himself in greater troubles... Yeah I know, one Ekin is bad enough, actually he is improving and this movie is one of his better showing his range one, but two Ekin is just too much for me.

This movie is what I call a pretentious movie and a waste of fine performances from Dayo Wong and Charlene Choi, while the two Ekin Cheng churn out a better than normal Ekin performance. However, I must praise Charlene for not acting cute for the first time and being a real hardcore cool chick (no please no evil thinking here) yeah hardcore gun chick. So she pass the test? Yup! As I have praised her for Funeral March and criticise her acting constantly in recent years, despite being a Twins fan myself, Charlene has finally churn out her best performance in her very short yet numerous film career. By not acting cute, she is just menacing to watch and provides a commanding screen presence that surpass even two Ekin. Now, that's a pretty good achievement. While on the other hand, Dayo Wong is just wasted and his talents is clearly understated and underused. Just watch him in the recent TVB series - Catch the Uncatchable and you will realise how underused he is and that's adds to my ongoing frustration of how this movie ended. As for the two Ekin Cheng, I just don't wanna comment, though I don't hate Ekin and can stand his acting at times, two Ekin = OH NO!

As for the direction, it is cool and stylish and the first 3/4 I will praise it for a good suspenseful and fun movie then, I will just advise to turn the TV off as it is better off not watching the ending, as it is just nonsense and pointless gunfight that result in a stupid movie. So do I actually like the movie, well I did or I was liking it at first and was even looking to give it 8.5/10, but the ending is so stupid that it should be down falling to a HEAT TEAM like rating (6.5/10), but good performance from Charlene and a good 3/4 of the movie, will kinda redeem the movie a bit. So what more do you want to hear? I just wanna say, just watch this movie for fun (well actually change that word to) Charlene, because she is probably the only reason to watch this movie and hopefully despite the movie being a pretty stupid one at the end, let's just cross our fingers and praise the director for changing the way Charlene act and sorry I can find nothing else in the movie that is worthy of my praise. So on a final note, let's sum up the movie... a potential turning out to be a pointless, cheesy and empty movie.

I rate it 7.75/10

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Product Title : Leave Me Alone
Artist Name(s) : Charlene Choi| Ekin Cheng
Language : Cantonese| Mandarin
Duration : 80 minutes
Reviewed by Neo (Andrew) - December 2004